An unflattering photo of Karoline Leavitt being removed from circulation has quickly backfired on the White House Press Secretary.
The photo, captured by AFP photographer Andrew Caballero-Reynolds during a Thanksgiving-themed press briefing, was removed from the photo agency’s library after it was “made aware” of the White House’s dissatisfaction with the angle, Status reported.
The photo, which features Leavitt dressed like a Pilgrim holding her young son near “Waddle,” the president’s pardoned turkey, appeared to have been hardly circulated before it was removed from the database. The image has now taken on a new life as it has been widely shared by notable figures.
The Democratic Party’s official X account posted a zoomed-in version of the image with no caption.
“The picture @PressSec @karolineleavitt doesn’t want you to see,” First Amendment lawyer Ari Cohen posted.
“It ran only in a Swiss newspaper. It would be a shame if you retweeted and Streisanded it,” former MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann posted.
“This is the picture the White House didn’t want you to see. You know what to do,” political consultant Kaivan Shroff posted.
The image appears to have been published only once, in an article in November in the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger.
Grégoire Lemarchand, the director of brand and communications at AFP, confirmed that the agency was “made aware” that the White House did not like the photo, but noted that the decision to pull it was “an internal editorial one, based on our standard quality and selection criteria.”
But Status’ Oliver Darcy pointed out that the White House does not need to issue a formal demand to remove a photo.
“Simply making it clear the administration’s press shop is unhappy with it is enough,” Darcy wrote.
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House and Caballero-Reynolds for comment.
Harsh photos have been a touchy subject for the Trump administration.
Cabinet officials flipped out at Vanity Fair over what they viewed as unflattering photos in their magazine spread last year. Some of the images included a zoomed-in picture of Leavitt showing off what appears to be injection sites on her upper lip, and a black and white image of Marco Rubio so up close his pores are visible.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth banned photographers from the Pentagon for a briefing on the Iran war after he complained about ugly photos they took of him.
The ever camera-conscious President Donald Trump has also reportedly called out photographers when they capture images he doesn’t like, especially when they end up on the front page of his hometown paper he loves to hate: the New York Times.
“He’s told me about pictures that he hasn’t liked of mine on a couple of different occasions,” New York Times photographer Doug Mills said. “He’s very camera-conscious. But he still makes compliments about me or my work.”
